Fish Tank Catastrophy Averted

I got to the store the other morning and was picking up toys in the play area and I walked past my 30 gallon tank and noticed it was very warm. I checked the thermometer and it read 96 degrees! YIKES!!!

Our heater has a temperture setting down by the plug and apparently the boys had “adjusted” the temperture the day before. I quickly turned down the temp and started checking the fish out. Luckily I did not lose any fish. It does look like some of my Java Ferns are not going to make it. They are pretty brown and not looking too good.

I think the fact that this is an apisto tank and therefore is kept at a higher temp (aprox 85) helped the fish deal with the excess heat. I think if this had happened to the tank at home there would have been some casualties.

NOTE TO SELF: Add lock to cabinet below fish tank.

Upgrading the Light in my Aquarium

This is a little off topic, but I figure I would post pictures of a little project I did tonight. I have a couple fish tanks and my most recent build needed better light. I have some live plants in the tank that needed more light than the cheap hood light that came with the tank could provide.

I looked into buying a new light for the tank but the $80 price tag did not make me smile – so I decided to see what I could do with the old one.

Here is what I started with.

It is a 15 Watt bulb and ideally for my plants I want at least 2 watts per gallon of water, so in this case I needed at least 60 Watts.

I wanted to take out the existing fixture and mount 2 sockets in the existing hood and use some CFL bulbs.

I had the sockets and bulbs out in the garage so this cost me nothing to do and I should have all the light I need in the tank for my plants.

Here it is all done

And here is my tank